One of the defendants hides his face on the opening day of the trial against terror suspects of the so-called 'Verviers cell' at the Brussels court, in Brussels, Belgium, April 15, 2016 | Julien Warnand/EPA

Verviers terror trial gets underway

Two men were killed and one arrested when police raided a terrorist hideout in the east Belgian town in January 2015.

The trial of 16 people accused of being part of a terror cell in eastern Belgium, which was broken up early last year during a deadly shoot-out with police, began in Brussels on Monday.

Two men were killed and one was arrested when police raided a house in Verviers in January 2015, one week after the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. Four Kalashnikov rifles, false documents, a large amount of money, communications equipment, explosives, ammunition and police uniforms were found inside a property in the city, about 120 kilometers east of the Belgian capital.

Nine members of the group remain unaccounted for, with France 24 reporting the two Belgians, five Frenchmen, a Moroccan and a Dutchman are thought to be fighting for ISIL in Syria, in hiding, or dead.

Marouane El Bali, the main suspect in the trial, is accused of attempted murder for firing at police during the raid, but last month his legal team called him a “small player.”

Prosecutors believe the cell was planning to kidnap and murder a policeman. A French special operations commander said the group wanted to kidnap and murder a high-ranking Belgian official, the BBC reported.

Along with El Bali, three other men — Souhaib El Abdi, Mohamed Arshad and Omar Damache — are charged with forming a terrorist organization and have been held in custody. The three other defendants are out on bail.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind behind the Paris attacks who was killed five days after the November 13 shootings and bombings, is suspected by police to have directed the Verviers group by phone from Greece, the BBC reported.